


half asleep

by isometric



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, References to Depression, Stream of Consciousness, making up my own headcanons as to a person's "name" and their numbers (see endnotes), making up my own reasons as to how/why Beyond chooses certain victims, self-harm and suicide happen off-screen BUT get mentioned in detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24451486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isometric/pseuds/isometric
Summary: In the sweltering summer heat of LA, Beyond grieves.
Relationships: A & Beyond Birthday
Kudos: 4





	half asleep

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Limit of A](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/630703) by Hikari of the Moon. 



He writes in blood "A =/= L" on the wall, curves his fingers in the red like he's dipping for jam. He's writing out his lifeline on white, he's bleeding out on white, he's bandaging A's left arm while the right one writes.

He's not the one who wrote that line.

It's a funny thing, memory, when the clocks chime three in the morning and he still isn't asleep. Four in the morning and he still isn't asleep. Five in the morning and he might as well get up, so he does so from his sitting position and searches for jam.

He doesn't like sweets. Isn't burning with the desire to be a detective, to succeed L. Doesn't care overly much about justice, when in the end everyone dies according to their fate. But jam eases the passage of dry toast down his throat, smooths the kinks caught in his voice. The texture is overpowering, a bit like drowning, and he knows from experience.

A likes sweets. A likes jam. A wrote his lifeline on the wall, but he doesn't always remember the line between him and A when the light outside is still grey and he's trying to decide between Quarter Queen and Backyard Bottomslash. There is no distinction between him and A, but they were different people.

A wrote the lifeline on the wall.

He vaguely remembers the feeling of hot blood squishing in his fingers. They were all trained on first aid, but theory does not equal experience. A does not equal B. A is neither above not below B. He remembers a rivalry, remembers the lack of bodily reaction towards A's mutilated arms. His stomach gurgled because he hadn't eaten that morning.

A didn't cut himself, but he remembers A writing their lifeline on the wall. Remembers the white wall, daunting, overbearing, L in his chair looking down on the rest of the world, so big it threatened to crush them whole, swallow them without a trace. He'd bandaged A calmly, fussing over the crisscrossing lines of the linen. He'd told A to stop, _stop_ , _stop stop stop_ , voice strained because they were fifteen years old and the numbers were flickering. They were sixteen years old and the numbers were flickering.

A was his rival and his secret and his. A was dying. A was slowly drowning in Wammy's House, and nothing could make the l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r reattach itself to his name. Blood in his mouth, blood on the walls, under his ragged nails, paring knife clutched in one hand.

He tells himself no, review the facts. Start again, because A deserves better. Correct to past tense.

A loved sweets, and so did every successor. A liked peach jam. A disliked strawberries.

A died in a pool of his own blood, inner arms offered like rusted sacrifice, jagged edges like he could peel off his own skin, a costume he didn't want to wear anymore. A wrote the truth on a whitewashed wall, wrote the truth that eclipsed all the other ones hiding under the layer of new paint. He bandaged A's arm against A's will, grabbed A's hand to stop it from scratching deep enough to expose his rot, their rot. The puddle of blood at their knees, the pool of blood in the tub. Pale swirls from the bleach.

They were fifteen when A lost control for the first time. They were sixteen when A gave in to the institution. They were seventeen when A decided they would become ghosts, legends. He turned eighteen, turns nineteen, lost to the grief from witching hour to twilight. To dawn.

A is seventeen when he says goodbye, A is sixteen when he learns to lie, A is fifteen when he forgets to smile, A is fourteen when they become codependent, A is thirteen when he starts losing his name, A is twelve when they become friends, A is eleven when they band together against the rest of the House, A is ten when they cement their rivalry, A is nine when they hate each other, A is eight when they meet.

A is sixteen when they finally figure out their chemistry. A volatile element apt to blow up or poison everyone else, an unstable one on the brink of breakdown. He'd meant to bring back the letters to form a name. To turn back four years to fourteen. He couldn't help his mother, gave up on his father, but A he wanted to save.

He is seven when they meet. But they should have left Wammy together, a ten year partnership to last ten more. He is nineteen he is plotting his grief his rage his revenge his grief his disbelief he is choosing between Backyard Bottomslash and Quarter Queen.

He's been looking at the four names since five twenty-six in the morning. The street outside hums with activity. It's the new millenium and A is not in it. Will never be. A is a relic, an old ghost story. A car honks outside. This isn't Wammy's. This isn't Winchester, England, private property for kilometres around, more bird species than the common pigeon.

He decides on both names. Quarter Queen taunts him with her looks, a younger Concorde without glasses, and her name. The rarity of it. He wants to erase all unique things. Backyard Bottomslash is a reminder of his failures, second place.

He scratches off Lia Lourriette. He won't be led astray from his path.

If A could write in blood, then they are both absolved. If A gave himself as sacrifice, then they are both ascended. They deserve better, and nothing is as high as L in his chair on top of the world. He will give this victory to them both, because A equals B, because A is to be mourned and B remembered, and B is going to give L an unsolvable case.

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST OF ALL, the "A =/= L" part was inspired by (you could say stolen from) [Limit of A](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6307818/1/Limit-of-A) by Hikari of the Moon (on FF). They've written a really cool concept, and I really love their B! But I thought it would be interesting to twist the line to be from A's perspective, because I think he's too self-aware not to know just where and how he falls short of L, and as he despairs he would also start to resent the comparison.
> 
> SECOND OF ALL, this fic is like......five years old..... Because it was supposed to be part of a series on Wammy's first generation, a series I've been working on for ten years now!! Which I never finished writing. But I will!!! So I will edit this note as appropriate. Some references that the rest of the series explain:
> 
>   * A tries to drown himself in a lake at age 16, and Beyond is the one to "save" him, almost drowning himself in the attempt. He gets hospitalized for a bit, for both the drowning and the attempt, which is the reference to "giving in to the institution" line. He starts pretending he's doing better once he's released, which is the lie part.
>   * A losing control at age 15 is the self-harm episode. Notably, this is the first and only time he does, which Beyond covers up, and the drowning incident is his first and —until his actual suicide— only suicide attempt.
>   * A dies two months before he turns 18. This takes place in 1999, which is why he never sees the millenium.
>   * Concorde is C. She sees A and B as rivals; this sentiment is not returned. Beyond hates her, and _that_ sentiment _is_ returned.
>   * Beyond knows L's name despite never "meeting" him because he sees L in Wammy. Cue Shinigami eyes and bam. Knowledge.
> 

> 
> Also, LA has many more bird species than pigeons, but Beyond doesn't know that and doesn't care.
> 
> Anyways, names and numbers (yes I know that this means A's true name is literally just "A" towards the end but listen—):
> 
> DN puts a lot of emphasis on a person's true name, which has always been legal birth name so far. However, what if a child was born and raised without a name? Also, some cultures have "childhood names" to ward off evil spirits before adulthood. Do those count as birth names for the child? What does DN understand as a name anyway? Can numbers count? If I name my kid "8" (no letters, just the actual number), does that count? Or a child born in a facility who's only given a serial code as a form of identification (like Prompto from FFXV), is that a name?
> 
> This grey area means I've decided that a person's true name is the name they personally identify with. (So a trans person's true name would be their new name, not their deadname. L's birth name is not L, but L is his chosen name. An English speaker would not be able to kill Light writing Raito in the death note.) This name can change too, it's not fixed! But someone changing their name is akin to changing who they fundamentally are as a person, so not just any change is valid from the death note's POV. This doesn't count for people like Mello, who still cling to their birth names and cannot let go of that attachment. If a person has no memory of their birth name, the point is moot.
> 
> And in any case, per the rules, lifespan changes are at least canon. At first, re:A's lifespan change, I hadn't settled on one of two choices: either lifespan changes with names (though difference in lifespan could be insignificant), or his life gets indirectly affected by the death note (e.g. someone who could have prevented his suicide gets killed, which I explore more in another WIP). In the end, the idea of flickering numbers was too appealing, and I went with the former. Becoming A (and losing Alexander) is akin to walking towards quicksand, in that you gradually fall deeper and deeper to despair and death. But regardless of why his lifespan changes, it drives Beyond nuts between desperation and resignation at seeing the new numbers, especially the closer to the end—the day A finally settles on his identity, at which point the numbers stop flickering.


End file.
